When Philips Lighting Company first introduced its Alto technology in 1995, the average amount of mercury in a four-foot (1.2 m) T-8 Alto fluorescent lamp was 14 mg. By encapsulating the mercury and creating a chemical barrier coating to prevent absorption of the mercury by the phosphor coating, Philips was able to lower the amount of mercury... Read more

At its annual conference in New York in July 2007, the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) announced a seven-point energy savings challenge for its more than 16,500 members. The challenge calls for BOMA members to decrease energy consumption in existing buildings by 30% across their portfolios by 2012 and benchmark every building’s... Read more

Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs), often called “geothermal heat pumps,” exploit the relatively stable temperatures found just 5 feet (1.5 m) or more below the surface, either depositing or extracting low-intensity heat. Heat pumps—whether ground-source or air-source—are basically air conditioners that can be run in reverse to provide heating as... Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently drafting a new specification for home plans called Designed to Earn Energy Star. EPA expects to complete the specification by the end of 2007, after two rounds of comments from stakeholders. The current version of the specification requires home plans to be accompanied by information... Read more

Thank you for your recent article on light bulb bans [see

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Vol. 16, No. 4]. It was well documented and had good points about the value of improving incandescent lamps rather than banning them. Incandescent lamps still have their place in some situations, and it would make no sense to replace every incandescent bulb with a... Read more

In a July 16, 2007 ruling for the LEED for Commercial Interiors Rating System, the U.S. Green Building Council endorsed the use of carbon-neutral products to achieve an innovation point. Both the original query, which was submitted in June of 2006, and the eventual ruling contain extensive qualifications and restrictions on this path to an... Read more

McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MDBC) has released a draft of the version two criteria for its Cradle to Cradle (C2C) product certification program. The most significant changes to C2C, which certifies an array of consumer and building products based on MBDC’s environmental philosophy, are a new “Basic” level of certification and... Read more

A report released in June 2007 details plans to move the U.S. House of Representatives to carbon-neutral operation by the end of 2008, to reduce energy consumption in House facilities by 50% from 2006 levels by 2017, and to “make House operations a model of sustainability.” The initiative, headed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) and Majority... Read more

The Royal Institute of British Architects USA (RIBA–USA) has announced the winners of its international design competition “Building a Sustainable World: Life in the Balance.” The competition asked entrants to conceive self-sustaining communities that respond to the challenges of global climate change (see

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Vol. 15, No. 9).... Read more

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Vol. 13, No. 8] with new data, Lisa Fay Matthiessen and Peter Morris of Davis Langdon still come to the same conclusion. There are so many huge cost factors in construction that it is not possible to detect any statistically significant difference between... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced in July 2007 that it had reached a total of 10,000 member companies, signaling large growth in the previous year. The 2007 figure represents a growth of 2,800 members over 2006 numbers; USGBC gained a total of 4,800 members between 2002 and 2006. Member companies include architects,... Read more

A study published in

Forest Products Journal in June 2007 found that wood treated with copper azole or alkaline copper quaternary compound (ACQ) to both above-ground and ground-contact levels is prone to damage from brown-rot fungi. Both chemicals were introduced to replace chromated copper arsenate for residential use several years ago... Read more